The Maestro
by CreativeWords
Summary: By age 10, Sherlock Holmes had scared off half the violin teachers in Britain. In desperation, Mummy Holmes turns to a visiting university symphony conductor/ composer. What happens when genius meets genius. Kid!lock.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: The idea for this story came from a friend who asked me to imagine our choral teacher meeting Sherlock. Thus Dr. Pravatti was created. I claim no ownership of these characters, but dearly love to play with them.**

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Dr. Ethan Pravatti was not what anyone would call an imposing man. He was barely the average height for women, bordering on frailty in his bone structure. His hair lay in a close salt-and-pepper crop, nondescript and notable only because it rendered him not bald. He had neither the nose, nor chin, nor forehead that could render such a small person impressive. In short, when he arrived at the Holmes house to discuss violin lessons, everyone, to the butler who answered the door, was underwhelmed.

He sat on the heirloom sofa in the formal drawing room that had seen centuries, looking decidedly out of place in a black jumper and sans jacket or tie. Violet Holmes paused at the door and let out a tiny sigh of despair when he stood in greeting.

"Mycroft, go fetch Sherlock, won't you?" she said to the teenager at her side.

Mycroft smirked at the newcomer with something akin to pity and left the room. Ethan Pravatti raised his eyebrows at that, but made no comment other than his polite greetings to Mrs. Holmes.

"Your reputation in the music world precedes you, sir," she said, settling in the chair opposite him.

"As does your son's," he replied.

His tone was completely even. Neither jovial nor aggressive. Merely stating a fact as such. The effect was heightened by the flat American accent.

Violet fingered the pearls at her throat and smiled. "Yes, well, he's a bright boy. So talented."

"Talented enough to keep you in search of teachers for him."

Again the factual tone. Violet gave a narrow-eyed smile of agreement.

"How much instruction has he had?"

"Two years."

"Yes, but you mentioned that his actual instruction has been disjointed at best. What books has he used?"

Violet made a vague gesture toward the door. "We have all the books in the conservatory, but he hardly touches them. He says the books don't challenge him."

Pravatti pursed his lips at that. "I told you on the phone that I don't ordinarily give private lessons, particularly not for children. I'm a composer, not a tutor."

Violet let her face crumple into anxious lines. "He's frightened off five teachers already. It's not that he's a bad boy, mind you. He's just intelligent – more intelligent than they knew how to handle. He won't abide being treated like a child."

"He _is_ a child," Pravatti observed. "A child who, according to you, has yet to begin to learn the discipline of practicing. He's a 10-year-old boy. At this point, it would be just as advisable to let him drop the violin altogether."

"That's why we wanted you."

There was a moment of silence while Pravatti let those words play through his mind, attempting to connect their meaning.

"He refuses to drop it," Violet continued. "He insists on scratching away, even though he hates the sound and can't fix it. He knows the finger positions well enough to pick out songs, but he can't abide the exercises in the books. Sherlock was never one for doing rote activities. What he really loves is playing music from his own head. That's what he won't give up, Dr. Pravatti. And that's why we need a composer, not a tutor."

It was as candid as Violet Holmes had ever been with a person outside the family. Pravatti leaned back a bit, considering.

"Has he had any theory?"

"Very little. Most of the other masters didn't feel it was essential for a child of his age, and he hardly needs it to be able to play. They felt it much more important to spend lesson time on the actual music."

The eyebrows were up again, but there was a minor commotion in the hallway and both heads turned toward the door. A low thud. A scrabble of shoe soles. A hissed command. And then the Holmes boys appeared in the door. Mycroft stood directly behind Sherlock, straightening his sleeves and giving a heavy-handed impression of the long-suffering retriever. Sherlock was performing a similar wardrobe adjustment, but his face was alight with the fire of battle. Violet cast a worried glance at their visitor and motioned her sons further into the room.

"Sherlock, Mycroft, this is Dr. Pravatti. Doctor, these are my sons, Mycroft, and Sherlock."

"How do you do?" Pravatti said.

Mycroft proffered his hand at once. "Pleasure to meet you. I've read nothing but the highest praise of your work with the University of London Symphony Orchestra."

Pravatti smiled. "It's been three terms and they haven't sent me back across the pond yet, so I'm fairly optimistic."

"Didn't I hear that the University press is going to publish an anthology of the works you've composed for the orchestra since arriving?"

Pravatti nodded. "Mostly orchestral, though I've done a handful of solo pieces as needed." He turned to Sherlock, "But enough about my publishers. You're the one we've come to talk about, aren't you?" He held out his hand, but Sherlock merely looked at it.

"I know all the fingerings and I have all the key signatures memorized and I can read music as well as Mycroft. I don't need you to teach me any of that. I can figure it out from my books. I just want to know what to do to stop it from screeching when I bow."

Pravatti blinked. Mycroft stepped around his brother and settled in the unoccupied chair, motioning the other two toward the sofa. Pravatti chose to sit. Sherlock did not.

"There's quite a bit more to violin than memorizing key signatures," Pravatti said, conversationally.

"I know most of it already."

"Very well, what is detache bowing?"

"It means you play one bow for each note, giving each equal weight," Sherlock spouted off, sounding for the world like an encyclopedia entry.

"Good, and how do composers indicate a need for natural harmonics?"

"With a small 'o' above the note."

"And how do you achieve martele bowing without crushing the sound?"

Sherlock's face froze for a moment, then he replied, less sure of himself. "It's to do with the accentuation of the note. I assume it's something to do with the bowing position."

Pravatti shrugged in agreement, eyes hardening. "Something to do with that, yes. It's the type of thing a book can't teach. You have to practice it."

Sherlock crossed his arms and planted his feet on the Persian rug. "I won't be turning in practice logs with perfect two-hour time slots on them."

"That an unfortunate decision. I require regular rehearsals from all my musicians, even the professional ones.

"Are you going to teach me how to play without it screeching?" Sherlock demanded.

"Most likely," Pravatti replied.

Mycroft gave an appreciative smile.

"Not sure you can?"

"Not sure you're willing to learn."

There was a protest that reluctantly stayed behind Violet Holmes' pursed lips. Mycroft steepled his fingers under his chin, dividing his attention between the defiant figure of his brother and the utterly calm American across from him. Sherlock's entire body had tightened at the sentence, eyes narrowing at Pravatti to almost the exact angle his mother's had minutes previous.

"You must be expecting to lose your job at the University of London," he said, a high note of derision in his voice. "Either that or you're in money trouble of some sort."

"Sherlock…" If Violet's exclamation was meant to be a rebuke, it fell far short of the mark, landing somewhere akin to a groan.

"Why else would the conductor of the University of London Symphony Orchestra bother to come all the way out here to teach a 10-year-old boy?" Sherlock asked. He turned his gaze back on Pravatti. "There are plenty of students who would do almost anything for a chance to study under you. You don't give private lessons. Everyone knows that. And you show up here in rumpled slacks and with those lines under your eyes and expect us to just accept that you've suddenly decided to take private students?"

"No,I don't." Pravatti said with the same flat, polite tone. "I haven't decided to take you, yet."

The silence was so profound it seemed to undo half of Sherlock's bravado by its very existence. Mycroft had half-leaned forward, prepared to intervene, but stopped, head cocked, to observe the phenomenon. His little brother had been shut up, and by the simple strategy of _not_ reacting. Sherlock seemed rather at a loss for how to proceed.

"What will decide it for you?" he asked stiffly, two beats past the point of awkwardness.

Pravatti stood. "I'll need to see you play."

Sherlock led the way to the conservatory and had his violin out and the strings tightened before everyone was properly seated. He ran the rosin along his bowstrings with defiant precision, glancing over at Dr. Pravatti, who appeared completely at his ease in the wingback chair he'd taken. Tuning was completed in a matter of seconds, and then the instrument was raised to his shoulder.

It was no beginner's run of_ Twinkle Little Star. _Sherlock was giving a version of a tarantella, a rendition that seemed to have been pieced together from memory rather than studying the music on a page. He attacked the beginning at a forte, a ferocity not often seen in the dance accompanying each swish of his bow.

After about 20 seconds, there came a quiet _ts, ts._ It was an unassuming sound, but it cut under the sound of the violin so insistently that Sherlock stopped playing at once.

Dr. Pravatti got to his feet. "Your right pinkie finger is stiff. Bend it in."

"But I always hold it this way."

"Yes, and you always struggle with the next section, don't you?" Dr. Pravatti took the bow and demonstrated the proper position. "This way your finger follows through. You can sustain your notes better and keep your bow in position."

Sherlock took the bow back and copied his example, frowning at the unfamiliar sensation.

"From the beginning, then." Pravatti said, stepping back.

Sherlock took off again, but in even less time, that _ts, ts _was heard, and he stopped, eyes flashing, to look at the conductor.

"You're letting your wrist go flat."

Sherlock immediately corrected the stance himself and started again.

_Ts, ts._

"How can you hear me play if you keep interrupting?"

Pravatti held his gaze. "I've heard enough." He let that announcement sit in the air. All three Holmes' seemed to draw a collective breath. "You've done some good work thus far. Most of it on your own, I think. You could continue on your own and blunder your way into decent playing skills if you'd like."

Sherlock inclined his head ever so slightly. "Or?"

For an answer, Pravatti held out his hand for the violin. There was a moment, an impossibly long moment, where it seemed Sherlock would not relinquish it. Pravatti waited.

Grudgingly, Sherlock extended the instrument to their visitor. He grasped it so familiarly that Sherlock frowned, distrusting the quick movements as Pravatti checked the strings and tuning and fitted the instrument under his chin. He gave two experimental bows on the E string, adjusted his stance, and began.

The first few notes were lilting and lovely, but almost at once a dissonance was introduced, dancing in and out of the delicate melody with a consistency that almost made up for the its jarring presence. The music wove a balance between the two, the manic driving along the lyrical theme, the sweeter notes soothing the harried portions. It was an interior monologue, a conversation between the violin and itself, alternately self-congratulating and accusatory, which wound itself down to a softer, wearied conclusion.

Pravatti let the last note resonate, then lifted the bow. Violet and Myroft broke into appreciative applause. Pravatti smiled slightly, but didn't move his gaze from Sherlock. A light frown was sketched into his forehead, the rest of his face immobile. He held out his hand. Pravatti returned the violin with a nod.

"Your choice."

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**Please read and review! I'd love advice, suggestions, and opinions on whether or not I should continue the story. Thanks!**


	2. Chapter 2

**If any of you readers are musicians, I'd LOVE a beta to help me with this stuff. I've been in choir for years, but instrumental music is a whole nother animal. As always, reviews of all kinds greatly appreciated!**

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Mycroft kept a tighter-than-necessary grip on Sherlock's shoulder as they navigated the halls of the fine arts building in search of Dr. Pravatti's office. With just minutes to spare before the class period ended, the spaces were reasonably full of those who had been dismissed early, those who were awaiting the next period, and the loiterers who seemed never to leave such buildings. Not quite a thick enough crowd to lose his little brother, but enough to allow him a merry chase of some duration.

Most of the students brushed past juggling textbooks and instrument cases, hardly noticing the decades-old hideous carpet beneath their feet, much less the people around them, but a few raised their heads at the sight of the skinny rail of a boy accompanied by a taller, solider boy who was also a bit too young to be treading the burnt orange pile. Sherlock returned their appraisals quite frankly, yet another reason for Mycroft's grip and allegro pace. The last thing he needed was an encounter with an irate student after Sherlock blurted something outrageous or offensive.

"Ah, music division," he said, shepherding Sherlock past the young man with ginger dreadlocks who was scribbling on staff paper and humming a singularly tuneless phrase over and over.

The woman sitting behind the desk looked up at them with polite confusion. "May I help you?"

"Yes, we're here to see Dr. Pravatti. We have an appointment at 1:30," Mycroft said, airing his politician's smile.

"Oh!" She looked up from the appointment book with the sugary-sweet smile that boded ill for both brothers' patience. Her eyes flitted between the boys before landing on Sherlock. "You must be Sherlock Holmes! This is a treat."

"Beg your pardon?" Mycroft asked, giving Sherlock's shoulder a none-too-gentle squeeze as he felt the muscles bunching with irritation.

"We were all surprised when Ethan took on a private student, but when we found out it was such a young boy, well…" she gave an expressive shrug. "Ethan's not one for one-on-one teaching."

There was a moment of silence, which she apparently felt was unacceptable. "That is, well… you must be a very bright boy, Sherlock. Up there with Mozart, to get Ethan Pravatti interested in giving you lessons."

Sherlock looked at her as if she was an introductory algebraic equation - foreign, but hardly difficult to decipher and most certainly not worth the amount of attention he was supposed to focus on her. Her smile faltered. Mycroft turned him toward the chairs.

"We'll just wait here, if you don't mind."

"I'll buzz him to see if he's ready for you," she said, picking up the phone with an air of great relief.

Sherlock had scarcely dropped into the seat and put the violin case in his lap before Mycroft was annoyingly close to his ear. Sherlock could smell the HobNob he'd grabbed on the way out the door. "I don't care if she tweaks your nose and calls you sugarplum, you will hold your tongue."

"For a woman with a failing marriage, a child who prefers his father, and an obvious crush on Dr. Pravatti?" Sherlock hissed back.

"Two children," Mycroft corrected before he could stop himself.

"Only one in the photo."

"She has a birthstone ring on the same finger as her wedding band. Four stones – herself, her husband and _two_ children."

Sherlock's brow wrinkled in irritation. One day he'd be done being outshone by Mycroft. Until then, it was a learning moment. "Why only one in the photo, then?"

The secretary was speaking into the phone, but her eyes kept cutting over to them. Mycroft leaned back and put a hand on Sherlock's shoulder in a way that telegraphed brotherly encouragement to a T, regardless of Sherlock's instinctive attempt to jerk away. "Consider what you know, and make a deduction," he said genially. "You can tell me after your lesson."

"Dr. Pravatti says you can come back," the secretary said, gesturing down the hallway of offices. "Third door on the right."

Sherlock nodded and stood, his face impassive as he deliberately looked past the secretary's left earlobe. The fact that he hesitated, though only for the space of a breath, told his brother volumes about his expectation for the lesson. Sherlock let the air ease out of his lungs and shifted his eyes back to Mycroft, diagramming his face to draw meaning from the micro-expressions written there. The right corner of Mycroft's mouth quirked up a fraction.

"Oh, shut up," Sherlock snapped, tightening his grip on the violin case and heading down the hall.

Dr. Pravatti's door was closed, but through it came the strains of a violin that seemed to be preparing for battle. Dark tones, but with a harried, near frenzied air – it was the gathering of the army, the shouts of the men, dropping into a driving melodic segment that could only be the general delivering his final call for courage. The sustained notes devolved into a rising cadenza that cut off a heartbeat before expected. The moment of unexpected silence before the first cannon blast or arrow volley or sword clash. And Sherlock knew he was to enter.

"Good afternoon," Pravatti said, placing his violin on his desk and clearing the pages off the music stand. Sherlock noted that they were hand-written.

"Was that one of yours?" Sherlock asked, ignoring the greeting.

For an answer, Pravatti took his pen off the stand, clicked it shut and tucked it into his jacket pocket. Sherlock nodded, inclining his head by way of a compliment. Pravatti seemed to take it as such.

"Your mother informs me that you have a composer's ear yourself."

Sherlock gave a slight, noncommittal shrug. "I don't like the songs in the practice books, so I make up my own."

"That's how many of us begin."

He was already employing that flat tone that so irritated Sherlock when they had met. Statement of fact, neither encouraging nor condemning nor indicative of any reaction whatsoever. There were those who gushed at his musical talents, those who found them laughable, but never one who had treated them as… commonplace. It was disconcerting. Of course, having a violin teacher who didn't treat him like a 5-year-old was a bit disconcerting, too.

"I'd like you to take this theory placement test," Pravatti said, laying a sheaf of papers on the edge of his desk and indicating the seat opposite his own. He stepped around to the opposite side and sat down, pulling the pages of his composition toward himself.

"Why?"

"Because I have no desire to waste your time or mine rehashing what you already know, and the quickest way to ascertain that is by testing," Pravatti said.

"Why theory, though?" Sherlock persisted, taking one stride into the room. He still wasn't sure he liked the idea of this short American teaching him, particularly if it meant paperwork and not playing. "I don't need to know theory to be able to play."

Pravatti folded his hands and leaned forward. "What makes you think that?"

"How will studying chord progressions help me learn to play an instrument that can only produce one note at a time? Why would I bother spending hours learning something I don't need to accomplish what I want?"

Pravatti pounced on his words quickly enough to surprise Sherlock. "Have you, over the course of your life, spent hours learning about the English language?"

Sherlock, sensing a trap, merely raised his eyebrows.

"I would imagine you have. You have an impressive vocabulary for a child your age, and I don't think you were born with the dictionary already in your head." Pravatti continued. "Would you say that a knowledge of the syntax and grammar of a language aids in communication?"

He didn't really need to go further, and both of them knew it. Sherlock's shoulders relaxed a fraction. Pravatti gestured again toward the test and the seat, and then picked up his pen and turned all of his focus onto the music before him.

Sherlock placed his violin case beside his chair and drew the test toward him, letting his eye skim down the first page. The questions were familiar from his reading, even if he'd never had much practical application. He glanced up at Dr. Pravatti as he reached for his pen, and stopped, struck by what he saw.

While Ethan Pravatti gave every impression of being a colorless academic in ordinary situations, his persona metamorphosed when presented with staff paper and pen. His entire upper body was engaged, his stance akin to a sportsman after a particularly elusive kill. He had a slightly dreamy expression in his eyes, contrasting with the intensity of his movements as he drew circles and lines and dots, representing a world of music with a few simple strokes of his pen.

Sherlock knew that expression. He'd never seen another person, not even Mycroft, with that exact brand of intense mental absorption – as if the physical world was the shadow, and the mind was the only real thing. With a sigh that let the last of the tension out of him, Sherlock began his work on the test.

They were silent for the next quarter of an hour, each wrapped in his own world and contented to be so. When a sharp rap came at the door, neither immediately reacted to it. When, however, the door was opened without invitation, and a paunchy man in a tweed jacket barreled in, it was difficult to say which was more irritated.

"Ethan, you didn't res-" the man broke off as he saw the dark-haired boy seated at the desk and staring at him as though he were a particularly vile strain of mold.

"I have a student, Arthur," Pravatti said calmly, placing his pen precisely perpendicular to the top of the page."I believe we have an appointment tomorrow."

"Yes, but I sent you a memo last week about your rehearsal schedule for the winter concert series." Arthur pulled a paper from his inside jacket pocket. "This number of rehearsals is absurd. The students will complain."

"Yes, I've already received several complaints. Those who can't commit one extra evening a week should find an alternate program to study."

"Do you realize the pressure I'm under from the administration to prove this program is viable?" Arthur snapped.

"You've discussed it at length with all of the music faculty." Pravatti said, not allowing a similar bite in his own voice. "Sherlock, keep working. I want this completed by the end of your lesson."

Sherlock turned the page and stared at the chord identification examples, though his ears were still fully attuned to the conversation happening behind him. Pravatti rose as Arthur advanced into the room.

"We can discuss this at our meeting tomorrow. As you've seen, I have a student."

"Do you have the time to devote to a private student this term? I thought your plate would be full enough."

"Isn't your plate full enough without checking on mine?"

It was polite animosity at its finest. Sherlock fought to keep his head down as the silence stretched to a breaking point.

"I'll see you at 10:30 tomorrow, then?" Arthur said finally, releasing a breath that sounded like a tire deflating.

"Certainly." Pravatti said, reseating himself with a tight smile. "I look forward to it."

He picked up his pen as the door closed behind the man, but did not immediately resume his work.

"Sir, who was that?" Sherlock asked. The polite title rather surprised him as he uttered it.

Pravatti's eyebrows raised slightly, too, but he merely answered. "Arthur Glenham, the chair of Fine and Performing Arts."

Sherlock digested what he had gleaned from the conversation. "He's not a musician."

Pravatti let out a chuckle. "No, he most definitely is not. Art history is his specialty – the type of thing that has regular, dependable hours and rarely requires extracurricular involvement. He is particularly concerned that the regular rehearsals the vocal professors and myself keep assigning might drive away students."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. Pravatti gave a slight shrug and looked down at the page. Sherlock did the same, but another idea had gathered itself in his mind, and it was disappointingly clear.

"He's the reason you agreed to take me on, isn't it? A way to get the program some publicity."

Pravatti put the pen down and met Sherlock's eyes, grinning in a mischievous way that seemed incongruous with the plain and lightly lined face. "Yes," he paused just long enough for Sherlock to nod. "And no. I agreed to take you on because my wife suggested that I needed something even more frustrating than Arthur Glenham in my life if I wanted to continue teaching here. You seemed to be the perfect solution."

Before he quite knew what he was about, Sherlock laughed. Pravatti joined in, which was equally surprising. It was brief, perhaps 20 seconds, but the moment crystallized.

"Now you'd best get back to work. I have a class to teach when your lesson time is up, and I don't plan to be late," Pravatti said, his tone firm, but not unkind.

Both heads bent over the papers again, and both minds asserted themselves over the shadows of the office.

20 minutes later, Sherlock left the office with his violin case and a smile. Mycroft's look of surprise as he came into the lobby was enough to settle his face back into serious lines.

"Had a good lesson?"

Sherlock shrugged. "Fair."

Mycroft's eyes narrowed at him, probing him for more information.

Sherlock jerked his head at the vacant desk, "She had a child die young, didn't she? Two kids, but only a photo of one."

"Stillborn, I imagine." Mycroft corrected. "Otherwise there would be a photo."

Sherlock bristled out of habit, but his mind wasn't on the secretary. Dr. Pravatti had given him sheet music to look over for next week's lesson, and he was considering breaking his own cardinal rule of violin.

He was going to practice every day.


End file.
